The Creative Media Authority (CMA) announced, at the first industry event of its kind, a new digital interface for the creative industry of Abu Dhabi called The Circle which will see more than 40 services for businesses move to a dedicated portal and become paperless, simplified and optimised in terms of timing.
This new creative community event series comes after President His HighnessSheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan announced last month that 2025 will be The Year of Community in the United Arab Emirates. The quarterly event will bring fresh themes each time such as AI and innovation, ensuring every event sparks new ideas and opportunities. As the guardians of the creative community in Abu Dhabi, an industry-facing event provides the opportunity for the community to hear directly from the CMA’s leadership team on the first round of results from an impressive digital transformation project.
“In the Year of Community, we want to remodel the way in which we support our extensive and talented pool of businesses and freelancers from across wider Abu Dhabi, who together, make up a large part of our growing creative ecosystem. Through regular face-to-face engagements and a transformative digital portal, we will unite as a creative community to forge new, cohesive ways in which we can strengthen our offering for the benefit of all, as we remain true to our vision to become a global content hub and the preferred home of the world’s leading content creators.”commented Mohamed Dobay, Acting Director General of Creative Media Authority.
After registering on the portal, businesses and freelancers will be able to access more than 40 services from today, as phase one will include the most frequently applied for services; new business set up and business renewal along with a range of business support services including a request for NOC, company share transfer to a new shareholder, change of director, business name change and business license activity alterations. Specific freelance services include application for new license, cancellation of a license, medication of a license, reactivation and renewal of a freelance license.
The new interface will not only simplify the processes for each function, with some applications estimated to take around 60 seconds, but will also see a shortened waiting times for application results with service level targets for business renewals being cut to just 24 hours via The CircleDigital Portal.
“It is with consultation and consistent communication with our valued industry partners that we launched a digital solution to improve the business and freelance support functions on multiple fronts,”said Khalid Khouri, Director of Industry Development at Creative Media Authority. “We have now, a simplified and optimised portal in The Circle which will improve on application times for a variety of different services – making it easier for the creative community to do business in Abu Dhabi.”
With phase one of The Circle portal now complete, and phase two launching by May, the team will also be bringing on more services with a view to digitising as much as possible before the end of June.
